A contractor and a building inspector have been indicted on homicide charges in connection with shoddy ventilation work that led to the 2008 carbon-monoxide poisoning of a Denver family at an Aspen-area vacation home.

Marlin Brown, owner of Roaring Fork Plumbing & Heating, and now- retired City of Aspen building inspector Erik Peltonen were each indicted on four felony charges of criminally negligent homicide. The two, as well as Brian Pawl, a Pitkin County building inspector, also face misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment. The indictments were announced Sunday.

The charges follow a Pitkin County grand jury investigation into the deaths of the four-member Lofgren family, who had won a Thanksgiving 2008 stay at the house.

Assistant Deputy District Attorney Arnold Mordkin said Brown installed the boiler and venting system at the $8.95 million home on Popcorn Lane, east of Aspen. Peltonen, a city employee working for Pitkin County, inspected the home.

Pitkin County sheriff's investigators concluded that dislodged venting pipes for the boiler that handled hot water and the driveway-snowmelt system flooded the home with "extreme levels" of carbon monoxide as the family slept.

According to police reports, 8 feet of exhaust pipe was unattached between the boiler and the vent outlet. Deputy Brad Gibson wrote in a report that it did not appear the PVC exhaust pipe had ever been glued together.

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Gibson also reported that several experts who investigated the scene did not find any carbon-monoxide detectors, even though a 2005 inspection report mandated the installation of the alarms.

One boiler specialist, Mark Passamaneck, told investigators he thought the installer of the leaking boiler was "reckless" and the installation "was not done to a reasonable community standard," Gibson wrote.

Gibson also toured the home with Brown, who worked on the home sporadically from 2004 to 2005. Brown told Gibson he could not remember if he used glue to seal the joints of boiler exhaust pipes.

Still, Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis in January 2009 said the evidence did not support negligent homicide charges. He forwarded his investigation to Mordkin, who asked a judge to empanel a grand jury, which convened in July 2009. A week shy of a year later, the 12-member grand jury made its decision.

Brown and Peltonen were arrested and released on $11,000 bond. Pawl was released on a summons to appear. The three will make their next court appearance Aug. 16.

"This took a long time," Mordkin said. "This is a very serious situation, and you don't want to rush and you don't want to make mistakes."

Denver investment banker Parker Lofgren, 39, his wife, Caroline, 42, and their children, 10-year-old Owen and 8-year-old Sophie, were found dead by friends in the home's master bedroom the day after Thanksgiving 2008. The Lofgrens had won a stay at the house as part of a fundraiser at Denver's St. Anne's Episcopal School. The house was owned by Jonathan and Carla Thomas, whose children also went to St. Anne's.

The home's master bedroom was above a utility closet that housed the leaking boiler. The children, who had apparently awakened in the middle of the night, were found on the floor of the bedroom. Both parents were in bed, with Owen near his father and Sophie near her mother.

Relatives of the Lofgren family said they were grateful for the indictments.

"We feel their deaths were absolutely preventable and we are not surprised with this outcome," said Hildy Feuerbach, Caroline's older sister. "I think the negligence there was just shocking. . . . It's a tragedy that could have been averted if the people involved had done their jobs with reasonable care."

Mordkin said the home, which was for sale for $8.95 million, had been approved for residency by county inspectors in 2005 or 2006, roughly a year after it was built.

At some point, the building-inspection process broke down, Mordkin said.

"That is our contention," he said. "Once the house is inspected, it is not the building inspector's job to make sure somebody does not do something stupid. That would be very unfair."

Messages left for Brown at his Glenwood Springs shop were not returned. A woman answering the phone at Peltonen's Basalt home said he, on advice from his lawyer, could not comment. Pawl could not be reached.

Pitkin County Commissioner Michael Owsley said Pawl and Peltonen, the latter of whom he has known for more than 40 years, are "some of the most outstanding employees we have."

"These guys are dedicated public servants who woke up every day thinking about public safety," Owsley said. "I'm sure they are devastated and their families are devastated. The Lofgren tragedy was bad enough, and this, as far as I'm concerned, makes this an even greater tragedy."

Pitkin County attorney John Ely said he needs direction from the county commissioners on how to proceed in terms of defending the county's employees.

"This is something totally outside the box," said Ely, noting a lack of legal precedent or protocol.

The Lofgren deaths, as well as the January 2009 carbon-monoxide poisoning death of University of Denver student Lauren Johnson, prompted Colorado lawmakers in March 2009 to pass a law requiring carbon-monoxide detectors in most homes. The odorless gas kills as many as 500 Americans a year, primarily from poorly maintained furnaces and gas stoves, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Lofgren family, in a statement, said the criminal charges and pending civil action "will send a clear message to contractors, and building inspectors and even manufacturers of heating equipment to ensure that such senseless carbon-monoxide deaths are prevented in the future."

University of Denver law professor Kristian Miccio said the key to proving negligent homicide involves a "reasonably prudent" standard. In this case, the question is whether a reasonably prudent person would know there was a deficiency in the home's ventilation system that posed a "substantial and unjustifiable risk," she said. "There has to be a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable and prudent person in regular circumstances would have understood."

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